Reforming nuclear weapons policy, plutonium problems, and how physicists can help

Synopsis

Physicists invented nuclear weapons over seventy-five years ago. Today, they still threaten humanity with catastrophe and, recently, this risk has been increasing. The US has over 1,500 deployed nuclear weapons plus thousands more inactive or retired. Current policy calls for maintaining and “modernizing” about 4,000 nuclear warheads and their delivery vehicles, at the cost of several tens of billions of dollars per year and significant risks to the environment and public health. Physicists can play an important role in providing scientific oversight and advocating for reform. I will discuss issues associated with plutonium pit production as a case study.

Further details on the plutonium pit issue: Modern thermonuclear weapons contain plutonium pits, which are hollow spherical shells of plutonium metal, as part of their fission triggers. These pits are inherently difficult, costly and hazardous to produce. The Rocky Flats pit production plant, near Denver, Colorado, was closed because of environmental infractions in 1992. Since then, pit production expertise has been maintained at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Current US policy calls for the production of 80 pits per year by 2030, despite the National Nuclear Security Administration (within the Department of Energy) acknowledging that this is unachievable. Furthermore, the justification for this production goal is controversial, as is the construction of a new production facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, which is to cost over ten billion dollars and will pose significant risks to the surrounding community. The public deserves better and more transparent study of the policy options.